The urban crawl involved going to three different food outlets for supplies and a few other places in our 'hood for good measure. It's not that we're on a gastronomic splurge, but rather, Cassy is hosting her annual Book Club dinner at our place on Friday night. Somehow, despite being just one meal and a relatively modest one at that, our shopping load seems to quadruple. Cass also insists that these six women eat like tiny sparrows as well, so it's astounding how arduous the shopping becomes!
We did the regular shop at Wellcome and a few specialty items were added to our regular basket for the week. Cass intended to source as much as she could here, before we scootered over to Jason's Marketplace, lurking in the basement of the still impressive, yet slightly faded glory of the Dayeh Takashimaya building over near the baseball stadium in Chung Chen Road. Jason's, predictably, provided not just essential items for the dinner (like smoked salmon and capers, unusual cheeses, French champagne and Australian wines) but extra little things for us as well of course! Bags bulging with produce, we staggered back up the stairs and loaded up Blacky the scooter with all manner of goods before a teetering, tottering careful journey back home.
After unloading our second bulk of goods, we set off yet again, this time on foot, into the buttery afternoon light of a stellar Autumn day. We wandered past the little corrugated iron humpy of the local cobbler, who had resurrected my crumbling dress shoes from oblivion for a cool $20 that very day. Onward down Chung Shan and by the upmarket Jamie Chen designer store with its contrasting nose bleed price-tags before strolling round the corner for the weekly bread order at Wendel's. Leaving the bread and cake haul to pick up later, we checked with the nearby Pizza Oggi on their opening hours for next Friday for the collection of two of their signature walnut salads, before sauntering over to our favourite "Eat Burger" for some tea.
We checked Uniqlo on the 4th floor of the Sogo building to scout for winter bargains and had a brief look around, sizing up some winter coats for mild "non-European" style winters, before exiting, picking up the bread and wandering home again to catch the highlights of the cricket.
Sunday opened with similar atmospheric fanfare and sunlight bathed the back rooms in the morning, patted Cassy's laundry dry, and beckoned us out into its sweet caress before the morning was done!
Despite the fact that we were luxuriating in some HD cricket via iPad app and some VPN trickery, lunch in the cricket signaled us to get out into the world. With narry a blink, my darling instantly readied herself for a trip on the trails with no notice whatsoever: she's a gem!
The Tienmu Gudao was a difficult slog in the midday heat. Despite the rapid onset of cooling autumn temperatures, Sunday was an aberrant 30 degrees, with a slightly relieving zephyr to temper the sizzle. We topped the peak after a slog up 1500 steps, and reveled in a pleasant, longer than usual walk along the ridge-line trail in a tunnel of rock and cooling foliage. The Macaque's occasional squatting poles were mercifully vacant as we made our way along the path which narrowed as it ducked under the soaring rock cliffs. We reached the end of the path under the Cultural College before eventually turning back to head back down for our ice cold cooling draughts at the base of the steps. A couple of baguettes from Cedric at Lutetia were just the ticket for a light lunch on the way back home and we settled in to rest our aching legs, feet up with the cricket for the remainder of the afternoon.
Photos: Virgy, urban day, country day. Special mention of photo number three above: this space was open when we went over to do the shop and the silver car had filled the spot when we got back....that's some pretty impressive reverse parking!